


The New Kid

by writer_bird



Category: snonk
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Emory is new, Felix Is A Little Shit, North High, emix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_bird/pseuds/writer_bird
Summary: there's a new kid at north high. meanwhile felix is busy pissing off the teacher
Kudos: 4





	The New Kid

**Author's Note:**

> in this moran and ola aren't married

Felix was pretty sure their teacher hated their guts.

That was okay. They hated their teacher’s guts too. A mutual hate.

The only problem was that West gave Felix their grades. An unfortunate situation. Felix couldn’t find it in themself to care.

Their grades went down, and their detention count went up.

Felix toed the line between disrespect and flat out dumb carefully, tightroping like so many performers they’d grown up watching on tv.

The day Felix thought they finally crossed that line was also the day of New Kid.

New Kid was introduced to the class. A transferring senior. He was tall, which annoyed Felix, and muscly, which also annoyed Felix. He was also fairly attractive, which definitely annoyed Felix. He had tattoos on his arms that he seemed to wear proudly. Another annoyance. Felix wanted a tattoo that they’d actually chosen.

New Kid sat down in the empty desk next to Felix, which annoyed them to no end. Especially because New Kid looked chipper and definitely like the kind of person who was about to talk to Felix. One more person for Felix to fend off, and that just took energy.

“Hi,” New Kid said to Felix when he sat down next to them.

Felix raised one eyebrow. “Aren’t you cheerful.” They were certain West had put New Kid here to annoy Felix. There was no other reason. This was revenge for all the trouble Felix caused them.

“I am indeed,” New Kid said. Felix had missed his introduction to the class; they’d been too busy folding paper airplanes out of their homework assignments, but that was fine, calling him New Kid worked just fine.

“Don’t worry,” Felix said, smirking slightly at him. “That’ll go away soon. You’re at North High.”

New Kid tilted his head. “What’s so horrible about North High?”

Felix flicked their eyebrows up. “You’ll see,” they said ominously. Hm. Maybe New Kid could be fun to mess with. It was an interesting concept, but Felix had to focus on their teacher for the moment. The past week Felix had been keeping their head down - relatively so, but now that their paper had been graded, it was safe to be an asshole again. They had to maintain it. They had a Reputation to worry about.

After attendance was taken and everyone settled down, West “opened up the discussion.” Of course, the “discussion” wasn’t really open, nor was it really a discussion. It was West asking questions about whatever dumb shit they were reading at the time, and then calling on people, who mainly just spouted what they knew West wanted to hear for their “participation points.”

That was probably the most bullshit thing West could have come up with. Participation Points. Felix could puke. Essentially, they got points for talking, and if they didn’t, whoops, F. It was bullshit because all the morons in the class opened their mouths - which were so much better closed - just so they could get points, and then the conversation was just Dumb.

Not, of course, that Felix cared.

They were reading Moby Dick. An idiot choice, in Felix’s opinion. Why the fuck would you give a bunch of angsty, idiotic high schoolers fucking _Moby Dick_?

Dumb.

Felix had read it a couple summers ago, because when you were bored and depressed, that’s what you did. They liked it a lot, actually. Not that they’d ever tell anyone that.

“Jacob, very good point,” West said. Felix watched him mark down next to Jacob’s name that he’d spoken.

The dumbest fucking thing. Felix wasn’t paying attention but they were _sure_ that whatever Jacob had said was the most asinine thing that could be spoken about Moby Dick.

Felix glanced sideways at New Kid. Unfortunate, really, that he’d been dumped in halfway through them reading the book. New Kid was in for a ride; he’d missed all the interested set up and foreshadowing, and was now in for some very lengthy descriptions of whaling boats and rope.

The discussion was paused momentarily, everyone thinking, and Felix knew this was their moment.

They raised their hand halfway, lazily, smirking at West. He just looked at Felix for a minute. Felix smirked even more. They knew their teacher didn’t particularly want to give out any more detentions that week - it didn’t look good to anyone if a teacher was handing out detentions like there was no tomorrow, but then again, it also didn’t look good if a teacher was letting their student snark at them.

Felix trapped him, and they loved it.

“Yes, Felix?”

“Well,” Felix said, pausing to give their words more weight. Every eye in the classroom was on them, because they knew that whenever Felix spoke up, it was going to be good.

It certainly was. Felix had been planning this from the minute teacher announced they were going to be reading _Moby Dick_.

It was going to cause… quite a problem.

This was, after all, North High.

Felix couldn’t _wait_ for this to be brought up in parent teacher conferences.

“Yes?” West said, folding his arms impatiently.

Felix smirked. “I mean. Queequeg and Ishamel? They’re so clearly gay.”

The entire classroom went quiet. Felix grinned a little. Very lovely reaction. They continued.

“I mean, _come on_. They shared the bed, for god’s sake. You can’t tell me-”

West cut across Felix. “Felix, did you have anything conducive to add to the discussion?”

 _Discussion, yeah fucking right_.

Felix widened their eyes innocently. “Oh, I’m sorry, was this not-”

“Felix,” West said.

People were snickering. Felix didn’t know if it was at them or at the teacher, but they didn’t particularly care.

“I’m sorry,” Felix said. “I forgot you were an English teacher.”

West was quiet for a minute. Felix knew he’d picked up on the heavy layers of sarcasm, and was deciding whether or not to respond.

“And that means?”

Ha. He took the bait.

“An English teacher,” Felix said slowly. “You know. English. Teacher. You and historians pretty much go hand in hand. Ignoring facts. It’s a lot of fun.”

“Ignoring facts?” West’s voice was on edge. Felix was having a great deal of fun.

“Oh, yeah,” Felix said. “I mean, do you know _anything_ about Herman Melville?” They rolled their eyes. “If you did, you’d know that Queequeg and Ishmael’s ‘friendship’ was hardly that.”

“Thank you for your input, Felix,” West said. He made a fast, angry mark on his clipboard. “Does anyone else-”

“Wow, so you’re dumb as well as blind,” Felix said.

West stood up and slammed his clipboard down on the desk. “Felix, step out of class. We’ll speak afterwards.”

Felix got up from their desk, grinning. They swept a mock bow to the rest of the class, who was watching them with varying degrees of annoyance and judgement, some with confusion, others something a little harsher. Their eyes glanced off New Kid, sitting next to them, who was watching them with a rather odd expression.

Felix slipped their backpack off the back of their chair and onto their back, heading for the door, but when they passed West, he snagged their backpack.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m keeping this today.”

Felix smirked at him. “Learned from last time, did we?” Last time, when Felix just hadn’t stuck around to talk after class.

West gave them a look that could have frozen lava. “Out. You’re being disruptive.”

Felix glanced at the rest of the class again. “Disruptive? Me? I could never.”

“ _Out_.”

  
  


Felix considered just ditching. West couldn’t keep their shit _forever_ , right? He’d legally have to give it back sometime?

But Felix’s book was in their backpack and they didn’t particularly like being around the school without it. It was half for entertainment and half so no one tried to talk to them.

Hm. Worth waiting. Even if it meant getting yelled at again.

They leaned against the lockers and waited.

People looked at Felix as they left the classroom.

Felix knew what they were thinking.

Felix didn’t care.

New Kid came out last. He gave Felix a Look.

Felic didn’t know what he was thinking.

For some reason, Felix cared.

“What?” they snapped.

New Kid looked like he was going to say one thing. He said another. “I see what you mean about North.”

Felix smirked. “No shit.”

New Kid looked like there was something else he wanted to say.

“ _What_?” Felix said.

A beat. West was going to call Felix in at any minute.

“Why?” New Kid asked.

Felix didn’t know what they’d been expecting. Not that. “Why what?” Still smirking. They didn’t understand this interaction. They didn’t know where they stood with New Kid yet. They didn’t like that.

“Why’d you piss him off like that? You had to know it would.”

Still smirking. It felt fragile. “Fuck yeah I know it would.”

“So why?”

Why.

Because who else was going to? Who else was going to call out this _fucking_ bullshit that North spouted left and right? No one. That was fucking who.

Why.

Because how the hell else were the the closeted kids going to find out this shit? Felix _wasn’t_ going to let themself - fucking _Felix_ -be their only model to relate to. No way.

Why.

Felix gave a short laugh and smirked at New Kid. “Because it’s fun.”

New Kid looked at them levelly. Felix didn’t like this either. They felt _understood_.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” New Kid said.

“Felix!” West’s voice. Felix and New Kid both looked at the classroom door.

“Well,” Felix said lightly. They felt anything but light. “Time to go get yelled at and told I’m going to hell.”

New Kid winced. Again looked like he wanted to say something. He didn’t. Instead said, “Want me to wait?”

That was Not Wanted in the Slightest. Felix raised their eyebrows at him. “Why?”

“Uh.” New Kid glanced around. No one was around. Felix folded their arms.

“Fuck off, man.”

“Right,” New Kid said. He shook his head. Already regretting talking to Felix, they knew. Fucking good, just the way they wanted it. Felix turned on their heel and shoved into the classroom.

New Kid was nowhere to be seen when Felix left the classroom twenty minutes later, hands shaking, already ripping up the note home West had given them. They couldn’t _imagine_ if Ola had read that.

They stuffed the shreds into the nearest trash can, telling themself to stop being disappointed that there was no sign of New Kid. Of course he wasn’t waiting. Felix had told him to fuck off. Generally, that meant that people did, in fact, fuck off.

Felix glanced at the time. Half of lunch was over. Was it worth it to probably be jeered at in the cafeteria to get lunch? Ola was on a school trip with Jackie because of course she was, which meant the fridge was more than likely empty, which meant that Felix probably should definitely go get lunch.

They went to the library instead.

New Kid was there.

Eating lunch.

Felix came to a full stop at the doorway. “What the fuck are you doing in here.”

New Kid looked up. “Cafeteria. Lots of people. Day one.”

Felix arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t strike me as a coward.”

New Kid looked down and Felix regretted their words immediately. They hopped over a chair from behind and perched on the back of it.

“You liking North so far?” they asked.

“Not particularly,” New Kid said.

“Fair, it’s shit.”

New Kid laughed a little. 

“What’s your name?” Felix said abruptly.

New Kid looked up, surprised. “West literally introduced me to the class.”

Felix gave a forced laugh. “When do I ever listen when that dirtbag talks?”

They didn’t want to think about West right now. _You’re nothing, you act up because that’s the only way people are ever going to care about you, you’re pathetic, useless, a-_

“Hey.”’

Felix looked up. 

“You okay?”

 _No_.

“Always.” They smirked.

New Kid looked unconvinced, but he seemed to remember Felix’s question. “I’m Emory. You?”

“Felix.”

“Felix.” Emory smiled a little. Felix liked the sound of it in his mouth.

A pause.

Felix didn’t know what to say. What to do. They didn’t particularly feel like being an asshole at the moment.

“You know,” Emory said after a minute. “You’re not wrong.”

Felix looked up. “Hm?”

“Queequeg and Ishmael,” Emory said. “Totally gay.”

Felix’s

heart

stopped

They feigned casualty. “Oh? Read it before?”

Emory laughed out loud. “Nah. I watched a video on it. _Are they Gay_. You know.”

Felix did know.

They leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Well yeah, of course I’m not wrong. I’m always right.”

“I believe _that_.”

The day

was a little better

now.

  
  



End file.
